Montclair Prep Charged With Using 5th-Year Football Player

Montclair Prep of Van Nuys used a fifth-year senior in violation of Southern Section rules during the 1985 football season, according to the player’s academic transcript.

Alex DeHayward, one of four transfer students who allegedly participated in a phony living arrangement at Montclair Prep, already had attended high school for four years when he enrolled as a boarding school student five years ago, according to Don Thomas, assistant principal at El Camino Real.

DeHayward, who transferred to Montclair Prep from El Camino Real, could not be reached for comment.

Thomas said that according to DeHayward’s transcript, he attended the ninth, 10th and 11th grades at Pioneer High in Whittier in 1981-84. He transferred to El Camino Real in the fall of 1984 but was ruled a junior because he lacked enough units to qualify as a senior, Thomas said.

State rules limit athletic eligibility to eight consecutive semesters unless a player appeals for a fifth year as a hardship case. Southern Section records show no such request by Montclair Prep for DeHayward.

The charge came amid allegations that Montclair Prep, a licensed boarding school, staged a phony living arrangement to gain athletic eligibility for DeHayward and three other football players when the school was investigated by the Southern Section in 1985.